I haven’t tried any new photography iPhone apps in a while since we have our new guest author, Antonis, posting some awesome reviews.
He suggested we try a new HDR iPhone app by EverImaging called the iCamera HDR. And I did.
Even though the iPhone 4 and iOS 4.x natively supports HDR, I still like to use dedicated HDR apps and have found them to provide better results. We have reviewed ProHDR and TrueHDR apps here before.
iCamera HDR works similar to those apps if you have used them but has rich control over your final image. And they make a bold statement in their iTunes description.
You all have seen other HDR apps in the AppStore lately. It turns out, they are all fake HDRs. Yes you read that correctly. They are all producing what is commonly known as Pseudo-HDRs.
iCamera HDR is the first app in the App Store to include the most advanced capture modes, full 32-bit HDR processing workflow, a range of digital photography post processing functions and awesome photo effects all in one app.
Let’s see if the app measures up to their claims.
Once you launch the app, you get a choice to shoot HDR photo or to create HDR pics from photos in your camera roll.
When you choose ‘Take a Photo’ option, you are presented with a camera window. In iPhone 4 you can toggle the front or rear camera. At the bottom, you will see an option to set sensitivity to camera shake and a setting button to choose between HDR Auto (default), HDR Manual, Single HDR and Standard.
The app instructs you to hold steady and when you tap the camera icon, It takes about 5-10 seconds in an iPhone 4 where it analyzes lighting condition and takes pictures. Then it takes another 30-40 seconds to give you the screen with all the options to play with the image.
When you are taking a picture in Single HDR mode or Normal mode, you can use the iPhone 4’s LED as a continuous fill light in low light conditions.
If you had chosen to ‘Load a Photo’, you can choose from 2 pictures or HDR effect in a single photo (pseudo HDR).
Whether you just shot a picture or loaded images from camera roll, the screen you are in now is the same.
I think this is where iCamera HDR stands aaprt from the others. It has an amazing array of options. In fact, this is the first app that I am seeing that has the HDR tone controls as you would see in full blown HDR software like Photomatix Pro
At the bottom of the screen, you have options to use a Tone Balancer, Tone Enhancer or a Tone Compressor.
With Tone Balancer you can play with Local light and it’s strength darkening or brightening up the picture. It has nice easy to use sliders.
With Tone Enhancer, you can play with fill light and its strength. And you can also use the Tone Compressor slider to further alter the picture to your liking.
Granted, I do not know what these sliders are meant to do technically but I played with them to get a picture that pleased my eyes.
In addition to these sliders, you’d see a vertical bar full of options to further edit your image.
With these controls you can
- Rotate/flip the image
- Adjust brightness
- Adjust contrast
- Adjust highlights and shadows
- Adjust blacks and whites
While adjusting any of these controls, you can tap on the image to view it in full screen. My only gripe here is that I am not able to zoom in to take a closer look at what certain adjustments did to the image.
Once finished with the image, just tap on the floppy/save icon and you can save it to your photo library or upload directly to Flickr, Facebook or send it by email.
iCamera HDR is a full featured HDR app and got me interesting results in my testing. I am yet to try this on landscapes. When I do that this weekend, I will be sure to post a link on Twitter and probably upload it to Instagram (TopiPhone).
You can see some amazing examples of images shot with this app over here.
My iPhone 4 has replaced my compact digital camera and it is the camera I have with me all the time! I carry my Canon Rebel T1i only on special occasions.
And photography apps like iCamera HDR makes it fun and provides me an easy way to shoot, process and upload without having to go to my computer!
EverImaging has a clear winner in their hands with this app. In fact, they have borrowed some of the HDR processing technology from their desktop counterpart apps – HDR Photo Pro and HDR Darkroom making this app a really quality one.
iCamera HDR is a new app in the App Store and is at 30% off sale right now for $1.99.
iCamera HDR Promo Code Giveaway
The kind devs at EverImaging has given us 4 promo codes to giveaway to our lovely readers.
Entering the giveaway is easy as always. Just do one of the following (1 entry) or all 3 (3 entries). Winners will be selected at random and will be emailed the iTunes gift card codes at the end of the contest.
1. Facebook ‘Like’ Top iPhone Resource Facebook page – 1 entry
[like]
2. Twitter Retweet this post or post with something like below. Make sure to include @topiphone in the tweet. – 1 entry
Retweet this for a chance to win 1 of 4 iCamera HDR iPhone app promo codes from @TopiPhone http://bit.ly/icamera-hdr
You can retweet as many times as you want. But, don’t over do it and madden your followers. (You can also use the tweet box in the site.)
3. Leave a comment in this post – 1 entry
You gain 3 entries if you do all 3. Just make sure you leave a comment that you did so, so we can crosscheck.
We’ll randomly select and announce the winners by Feb 14 5pm EST here, TiR Facebook page and on Twitter.
We also recommend adding our TiR RSS feed so you get notified about the winners. Good luck!
Winners Announced
Congrats to speed4mee, ssohn, torrensin & _feeds on winning this app promo code. We have nmore fun giveaways coming soon. Stay tuned!
